Tag Archives: learning objectives

We were thrilled to present on the topic Expanding Metaliteracy Across the Curriculum to Advance Lifelong Civic Engagement at Cedar Crest College last week! The Cedar Crest Curriculum Committee invited us to present a summer workshop to build on the great work they are doing to map information literacy/metaliteracy across the curriculum. We were very impressed with the work they are doing and enjoyed our time with the faculty, librarians, and administrators very much. This is the slide deck for the facilitated presentation and it includes the world premiere of our new book cover for the forthcoming Metaliteracy in Practice! Be sure to check it out!

Our new co-authored book Metaliteracy: Reinventing Information Literacy to Empower Learners (April 2014) has been published by ALA Books/Neal-Schuman!The book features seven chapters that range from theory to practice, expanding the concept of metaliteracy with an emphasis on metacognition, exploring current trends in social media, describing the learning objectives required to support metaliterate learners, and analyzing global trends in emerging literacies. We also present the results of a preliminary survey about metaliteracy and related issues, and then close with two case studies from our own teaching in the classroom and online. The book includes visual models of the metaliteracy framework and the metaliterate learner and several figures in support of our survey chapter. Sheila A. Webber, Director of the Centre for Information Literacy Research at the Information School, Sheffield University wrote the Foreword to the book. ALA is currently providing a sample of the book and Facet Publishing is distributing the book internationally. The new publication is also available via Amazon and other online booksellers. The official press release from ALA Publishing is available as well: Using Metaliteracy to Empower Learners. We are excited about the new book and appreciate all of the interest that has been expressed in the metaliteracy model. We look forward to continuing the conversation now that the book is officially available! Feel free to post comments about the book via this blog or Twitter using #metaliteracy. We will be discussing the book as part of our upcoming keynote presentations and can’t wait for the dialogue about these ideas! -Tom and Trudi

The University at Albany recently made the decision to include four general education competencies within each major. This change, which will take effect for the fall 2014 semester, moves information literacy, critical thinking, oral discourse, and upper level writing (now called advanced writing in the major), from a course-based model to infusion within the major.

As would be expected, many, many task force, committee, and council meetings were part of the process, both leading up to this change in how these competencies are taught, and then developing the supporting structure, including the learning objectives for each. Because departments are mandated to do this but don’t necessarily feel prepared to do so, it has provided an excellent opportunity for information literacy librarians and bibliographers to have meaningful conversations with faculty members about what information literacy really is. And it also provided an opportunity to include elements of metaliteracy into these new learning objectives.

To see the result, take a look at the Campus Initiatives section under the ML in Practice tab. We hope that this will be just the first of many entries in this section. We would very much like to hear from you if you have something to report. Leave us a comment and we will be in touch.